Daily Archives: March 19, 2019

Gone With the Wind

 

No, this isn’t about a problem with gas attacks or a theme on Dorothy’s trip to the land of Oz.   I am writing today about the greatest movie of all time that was ever created and put on screen.  I am writing about that wonderful movie that came from Margaret Mitchell’s wonderful book, “Gone With the Wind.”   Did I say it was wonderful, yet?  Well, it is.

I grew up watching Gone With the Wind.  I’m not sure where I saw it for the very first time. One would think I’d remember it since I am so in love with the movie.  I may have seen it at the theater with my mother or I may have watched it for the first time on the television.  No matter, I fell in love with it and I really fell in love with the actor who played Rhett Butler, Clark Gable.  Yikes, was he ever handsome. When Scarlett first sees him at the bottom of that huge staircase at the Wilkes’ picnic, I swoon every time.   And the best kissing scene in any movie, ever, was when Rhett picked up Scarlett out of the wagon and kissed her before he went off to fight the losing war with the southern soldiers.   Scarlett, you idiot. That man loved you so much and that was some kiss.  And you rebuffed him!

This past weekend Gone With the Wind was having a special 80th year making of the movie celebration showing at a local movie theater. Well, not so local. We had to drive an hour to get there.  We had purchased our tickets weeks ago and I was so looking forward to seeing it again.  Not like I haven’t watched it once or twice every year since I’ve been a girl.  But it was like the very first time for me. I actually got a lump in my throat when the music started and the opening credits came on.  It was like time stood still and I was once again that romance loving, dream believing young girl sitting in a darkened theater watching her very favorite movie of all time for the very first time.

And I swooned when Scarlett saw Rhett at the bottom of the stairs and asked, who is that man?  Little did she know how involved she was going to get with him!  Eating popcorn and Milk duds, sitting beside my favorite date, I was in heaven.    I forgot the movie was four hours long with an intermission, but it flew by. When it was over, I could have sat through it again. Did I say I loved Gone With the Wind, yet?

So today I got out some of my Gone With the Wind books I have purchased or been given through the years.  A few years back my kids gave me a CD of the movie which means I can watch it anytime I want, but I still watch it when it’s on tv. I guess it’s knowing I’m watching it with others that makes it special.   Anyway, when I was about fourteen, the book Gone With the Wind was celebrating its 25th anniversary of being published and for Christmas that year, I got the celebratory issue.     I read it all and loved it, too.   There was a lot in the book that was not in the movie. Scarlett had more children than just Bonnie Blue.

The book came in this.

This was the front of the book.

A booklet about the book.

Through the years I have purchased other books about Gone With the Wind.

A book about the making of the movie.

A book chock full of scenes from the movie including back stage scenes.

At an auction years ago I bought this book that was published in l936 about the time the first book came out, but this is not a first edition I don’t believe.

And then at a flea market near our home I found this book in a pile of junk. And what a find it was for me.

A very interesting book about Margaret Mitchell’s life and how she came to write, “Gone With the Wind.”  Years after the movie became so successful,  she was hit by a speeding taxicab and died.  A sad ending to a very interesting life and an illustrious career.  I will always be grateful to Miss Mitchell for writing one of the best books ever written, in my opinion.  It should be required reading.  In today’s attempt to get rid of all our history because it offends some people, we need to know our history more than ever before and to learn it from someone who was there or knew someone who was there or at least knows the real story.  Her story is full of the history of both the post and pre-Civil War South. She learned it at the knee of old Civil War soldiers when she was a girl.  We should never forget.   One of the books had a newspaper article slipped into its pages about Margaret Mitchell’s brother and how he kept her story alive and kept up with the Gone With the Wind profits from sales of books, movie tickets, CDs, etc.  Profits were still in the millions at the time of the newspaper article.  She certainly left a legacy for her family. She had no children.

I don’t know if I will be alive when the 100th year of the Gone With the Wind Movie is shown, but I hope there will still be people interested and that it will never be forgotten.

Here’s to the best movie ever made(in my opinion) Gone With the Wind.  Bye.